Nightmares
by TwentyOneCatWhiskers
Summary: Phil Lester struggles to sleep with constant reoccurring dreams about his friend's death. He hopes talking to Dan about them will help, but that day his nightmares seem to become a reality... (rated T for somewhat gory content in chapter 3. Reviews are greatly encouraged!)
1. Chapter 1 - Nightmares

It was a chilly Tuesday morning when Phil finally decided to tell Dan about his strange dreams. It was really playing on his mind and he was pretty sure that if he told somebody about them, they would go away.

They were both sat together on the sofa, laptops on knees, feeling somewhat bored, the fire lit and an awkward silence was beginning to make itself evident.

Phil turned to his friend ands cleared his throat,

"Dan," He started, "There's something I need to talk to you about…"

Dan immediately closed his laptop and turned to Phil – he'd learnt what that tone in his voice meant – something was definitely bothering him and, being the good friend he was, Dan would do whatever possible to help.

"What's wrong?" He asked, concerned.

"Uh… well… recently, I've been having these really weird and disturbing nightmares…" Phil replied, looking slightly embarrassed.

"What happens in them?" Dan asked.

"I don't really want to go into details, but they always end up with… you dying," and he turned away.

Dan smiled, sympathetically,

"They'll pass, don't worry," he assured him.

"Do you have dreams, Dan?" Phil asked.

"Of course I do," Dan replied, nodding, "Pretty bad ones, too, most of the time: dreams about the world ending and whatnot. Lots of people die in those."

"Do I die?"

"No."

"See, they aren't as bad as mine, then. These are graphic, too. Every night for a week now," Phil sighed, burying his face in his knees, "It's stupid, isn't it? I'm 30 years old, I shouldn't be getting bothered by dreams."

"No, it's not stupid, Phil, it happens to everyone," Dan said, rubbing his friend's shoulder, "I mean, it must be traumatising for it to happen every night. How exactly _do_ I die?"

"Varies. Last night you were shot and the night before that, you were mauled to death by a rabid dog. Woke me up at 3 in the morning and I didn't sleep after that."

"Is that why you were all grumpy that morning?" Dan sniggered.

Phil smiled and nodded, slowly,

"But anyway. Hopefully they'll go away tonight now I've told you about them. I'm really tired still, I hardly got any sleep last night…"

"Go and lie down," Dan suggested, "We can go out for coffee at 12 so you have a few hours of rest."  
"Good idea," Phil agreed, standing up, "I'll set my alarm."

"Sweet dreams, Phil," Dan smiled.

Phil laughed,

"I hope…"


	2. Chapter 2 - A Good Friend

The frantic beeping of an alarm clock was the first thing Phil heard when he woke up. At first, he was too tired to open his eyes, but then he heard a quiet 'Phiiillllll…' from beside him and he flickered one eyelid open to see the face of Dan Howell in front of him, sitting cross-legged on the floor and wearing a smile of anticipation.

"Hi, Dan…" Phil mumbled, tiredly.

"How did you sleep?" Dan asked, eagerly, "Any disturbing nightmares?"

"Not today," Phil replied, smiling a bit, though his eyes had gone back to being closed.

"I thought we could go to Starbucks," Dan said, his voice cheery, "What do you think?"  
A grin spread across his friend's face,

"Sounds good to me!" Phil chirped, "I'll be awake and ready in 15 minutes," and he heard Dan stand up and wander out of the room.

Phil was partly happy that he had had no dreams at all that morning (not that he could remember, anyway) and partly also because Starbucks had just brought out a new Fudge Hot Chocolate (Creamy milk hot chocolate with fudge flavour topped with a fudge whipped cream and a gold chocolate curl topping) and he was dying to try one.

Today would be a good day, he decided, and it would be the end of all his weird dreams.

* * *

London was cold that afternoon and even though they were wearing thick winter coats, Dan and Phil were still shivering as they wandered down the road, heading to their safe coffee haven of peace, huddled up next to each other to conserve as much heat as possible.

It was also strangely quiet on the roads and the traffic seemed to almost all be gone, cars just flowed smoothly down the street without hindrance.

Spying the door to the warm coffee house that is Starbucks, the duo sped up their pace and hurried along the path to the door, which they pushed open and entered through before picking their favourite seat by the window, which was currently sporting some pretty nasty condensation.

Collapsing into his seat, Dan gazed about the shop and saw that it was completely barren save from one lonely-looking old gentleman sat in the far corner. It was strange for the café to be this empty, especially on a cold day, but Dan wasn't complaining,

"Guessing you want one of the Fudge Hot Chocolates, Phil?" He asked.

Phil nodded, eagerly, and made himself comfortable. He expected that they would be staying here for a while. Strangely enough, he didn't feel that cold, even though it looked as if it was about to snow outside. He dug his phone out of his coat pocket and unlocked it without even looking at the screen, instead he decided to draw faces on the steamed-up glass beside him.

Dan appeared beside him only a few moments later, two cups of coffee in hand.

"That was quick," Phil observed.

"No queue," Dan replied.

"Oh. Yeah. Should've guessed," Phil coughed as is friend sat down and slid his cup across the table towards him. He took off the lid and breathed in the warm, rich aroma that it was emitting. It smelled of warm evenings by firelight and cosy nights with friends: a rather heart-warming smell to cheer you up on a bitter afternoon like this one.

"How is it?" Dan asked.

"Beautiful," Phil replied, smiling, the cream from the top of the chocolate leaving a fudge-y smear over his top lip.

Dan laughed at him,

"That's probably the best mustache you'll ever have," he said, "Anyway, I'm glad you're enjoying yourself. What do you want to do after this?"

"I don't know… thought maybe we could just stay here in the warmth and chat until it stops being so chilly outside."

"Sure-"

Dan was about to say something more, but a ringing from his pocket cut him off: his phone.

"Guess I'll have to go and answer that," he sighed, taking it in his hand, "I'll be right back," and he slipped out of the door.

Phil watched him leave and swirled his hot chocolate around in his cup. He was glad that he had a friend like Dan: always happy to do anything to make his friends feel better after a long day. After all, Dan's friends meant more to him than he himself did. Phil made it his resolution to do something nice for Dan to say thank you for walking him down the street, for sticking close enough to share his warmth and, on top of all that, for buying his drink. That was a good friend - the best friend Phil would ever have - and he knew that he could never lose that kind of a friend; not to any gunmen, rabid dogs or whatever else threatened to hurt him. Dan would be staying by his side for the rest of time, and this Phil was sure of.

It was only after five minutes that Phil realised that Dan's phone call was going on for quite a long time. It had also gone suspiciously quiet outside: no people walking by and no traffic. This was certainly abnormal for London…  
Phil decided to investigate what was going on outside, as he couldn't see anything out of the steamed-up window. But before he could get up to walk to the door, there came an excruciatingly loud horn blare from outside, completely out of the blue, followed by a loud thump, a smash and a series of smaller thumps like the sound of a phone being dropped.

This was when Phil knew for certain that something was terribly, terribly wrong.


	3. Chapter 3 - Dan

**Author's note: I'm sorry this chapter is so long, I kept adding stuff to it. Get your glitter and paper ready and don't cry: CRAFT!**

Phil jumped to his feet, knocking the table as he did, making his cup fall onto the floor and pour out hot chocolate everywhere. He flung open the doors and looked about. His heart was beating faster than it should have been and his legs were shaking like branches in a storm.

He didn't want to bring his eyes downwards – he knew that he would see something horrible if he did – but he couldn't put it off forever and he slowly gazed downwards to see, lying on the road in front of him, a body. Phil's jaw dropped in utter disbelief.

There was no traffic on the road – if the horn he had heard had been from a car, it was long gone now. This couldn't be right: London was usually so busy.

"DAN!" Phil cried at the top of his lungs.

Stumbling over to the body, he dropped to his knees, his eyes watering, not believing what he was seeing. It was, indeed, Dan. He was covered from head to toe in blood, some of it still oozing out of his arm and across the cobblestones to trickle down a drain nearby. His phone lay beside him, the screen completely smashed and bits of glass still gouged into Dan's palm, now covered in his lifeblood, no longer clear but stained with red: dark, thick red.

His ankle was twisted in an odd position, facing inwards just over 90 degrees.

And his face… that was the worst: it was covered in scratches and gashes, still steadily bleeding, and his eyes were closed but not squeezed tight. It almost looked as if he had expected what was coming and decided to just let it happen.

Phil felt ill just looking at him, his head cloudy and his vision blurred,

"Dan?" He repeated, quietly as if he was expecting a reply, "Dan?"

He kept repeating it, getting louder each time, shaking his friend back and fourth – trying in vain to wake him up.

"Dan!" He yelled, one last time before his tears fell and make their way down his face, some dripping off his cheekbones but most trickling down to his chin. He gritted his teeth as a sharp pain shot through his heart as if somebody has stabbed him with a knife. He could feel his stomach turning.

"Dan…" he coughed as he choked back the tears, "Dan, wake up!"

But nothing happened. No movement, no breath, no nothing. It was like his nightmares that he'd had every night, but in those dreams, he would have woken up by now.

Phil buried his face in Dan's shoulder and closed his eyes, breathing in his familiar warm scent, hoping that if he closed his eyes and thought hard enough, he would wake up and Dan would still be there and he could have a hug and everything would be all right.

But however long he thought, when he opened his eyes, he was still there.

He could still hear Dan's voice in the back of his mind, playing itself over and over again, the last thing he had said: 'I'll be right back'.

They were his last words. No. They couldn't be – Phil wouldn't allow it. Yet they were.

Dan wasn't coming 'right back' like he said he would: he wouldn't be coming back at all.

"…Dan… wake up…" Phil pleaded again, breathing into the neck of Dan's black coat that covered his bloodstained t-shirt (it was his favourite t-shirt: the black one with the solar eclipse on it, the one he always wore), "…Dan, we… we have to go home."

No reply.

Of course there wouldn't be.

And this was when the ugly truth hit home: Dan was dead and there was nothing he could do to bring him back.

Tender, kind-hearted Dan who would do anything to make his friends happy.

Dan, who would never willingly hurt anybody, who had the deepest eyes, who could always make you laugh, who you could never stay mad at for long, who gave the cosiest hugs, who could always forgive, who would keep you warm, who could listen to you whenever you felt down, who had some of the best ideas and who you could always rely on to be there for you, even when he himself was sad.

That was Dan. And now he was gone. His smile was gone, his laugh was gone, his _life_ was gone… And suddenly Phil's world was very dark indeed. Phil wasn't one to be depressed: his world had always been very bright and alive. _Alive_ wasn't sad, was it?

Phil supposed it was when it's over. Everything is.

He wrapped his arms around his friend, not even caring that his hands were getting covered in blood, and laid his limp form on his lap, running his fingers through his dark brown hair.

" _You said you'd always be there…_ " Phil breathed, quietly, " _But where are you now?"_ And one last lonely teardrop fell from his eye and onto Dan's coat, sinking into the fabric and leaving a stain.

They stayed there like that for quite a while, Phil's eyes closed tight and tears dripping steadily down his face. And he waited. He waited for whatever would happen next. Something was bound to happen, he was sure of it.

But nothing did: the world stayed silent and the air was still.

"I suppose I'll have to go now, Dan," he whispered, his tears choking him, his eyes still closed, "Don't worry: I'll leave everything in your room exactly how you left it, and I'll clean every day, and I'll take good care of myself, because I know you wouldn't want me to be sad forever. I guess this is the end of Dan and Phil, huh? Well, goodbye Dan… I'm sorry I couldn't be there for you when you needed me the most, like you were for me. And I know you can't hear me, but I want you to know that I'll always miss you very much. And one day I'll find a new friend, I suppose, but they won't be as good as you, and they'll find me drawing cat whiskers on my face, eyes full of tears, and they'll ask me what's wrong and I'll hand them our book and I'll tell them all about you."

Phil stood up then and opened his eyes.

The world around him was pitch black. It would be, of course. After all, his sunshine was gone.

He felt a bit guilty leaving Dan there, but no harm would come to him, he supposed. And even if it did, he was already dead.

Phil began to walk into the darkness – because that was the only place left to go – but just as he did, he heard a strange noise.

It wasn't the sound itself that was strange, it was the fact that there _was_ sound, it had been silent so long that Phil had forgotten what noise sounded like. It was a rumbling that grew louder and then suddenly a horn blares, agonizingly strident. How could anything dare to be so loud at a time like this?

He turned to face the noise and saw two bright lights speeding towards him: headlights. Illuminating his tear-stained face.

He was frozen to the spot and his legs refused to move however hard he tried. He supposed this was how Dan must have felt…

The headlights got closer and closer and closer until they were right in front of him, and suddenly, all that he could see was light.


	4. Chapter 4 - 'By Your Side'

"Phil? Phillllll? Phiiiiiil?"

Phil's eyes flickered open and the first thing he saw was a very familiar smile.

"…Dan?" He stuttered. He couldn't see properly but he'd know that smile anywhere.

"Hey, Phil, are you OK?" Dan asked, squeezing his hand.

"I don't know…" Phil replied. His voice breaking.

Dan reached to the side to pick up Phil's glasses and slide them onto his face.

Phil blinked as his vision adjusted and saw, sat in front of him, kneeling on the floor and resting his arms on the mattress… Dan.

"You forgot to set your alarm," he whispered, "I came to see if you were awake and you looked a bit-" and here he paused as he saw his friend's face, "Have you been crying?"

Phil looked at him with the biggest, bluest eyes Dan had ever seen him make and blinked once,

"Maybe," he admitted, guiltily.

Dan's grin fell,

"It happened again, didn't it?" He sighed.

Phil nodded, smearing a wet tear-stain down his blue mattress. His top three shirt buttons had come undone in his fidgety sleep and his hair was a complete mess.

"Hey, it's OK," Dan smiled, weakly, patting his shoulder and correcting his fringe, "Do you want to talk about it?"

"I'd rather not right now," Phil yawned, leaning on his elbow and sitting up.

"It'll make you feel better," Dan insisted, "And you know you can tell me anything. I won't laugh, I promise."

Even with his usually pallid skin, Phil still looked pale – to the point of being ghostly, almost. He held his arms out for a hug, which Dan gave him and noticed that he felt thinner than usual. Thinking back, Dan realised he'd hardly seen Phil eat anything for a few days. What could be so horrible about these dreams to be enough to put him off his food?

"It felt so real," Phil mumbled, his voice muffled by Dan's t-shirt (the same one he had been wearing in the dream), "I thought you were really gone."

"Well, I'm not," Dan assured him, rubbing his back.

"How do I know this isn't a dream?" Phil asked.

"Don't ask that," Dan replied, "You'll make me have another existential crisis," he laughed, quietly, and though he smiled, Phil still wasn't convinced that he was in the real world.

"It was horrible, Dan," he choked, "And so vivid."

"Tell me everything that happened, from start to finish," Dan ordered, letting go of him and sitting down next to him on the bed.

"From start to finish?" Phil repeated, sitting up properly and resting his head on the bed frame.

Dan nodded and put his arm around his shoulders.

And so Phil begrudgingly told him everything: about walking down to Starbucks, huddled together in the freezing cold, about how the café was almost completely empty when they got there. Admittedly, he realised he should have noticed it was a dream sooner, with how barren everywhere was. But it started off as a good dream until the 'incident' happened – they all did, in fact. So Phil told Dan about how he'd found him, blood-splattered and covered in scratches, and how he'd stayed with him for at least half an hour, just crying into his limp form. Dan stayed silent throughout all of this and didn't make any eye contact, but Phil could tell that he had tears in his eyes. After all, hearing in detail about your friend mourning your dead body must be pretty upsetting.  
"I don't know what happened at the end," Phil concluded, "But there were these two bright lights like headlights speeding towards me. I think it must have been a car. Whatever it was, it hit me and that's when I woke up. That wasn't upsetting, though," he mentioned, "In fact, I was glad we died together. I hope we die together, Dan."

Dan smiled,

"I mean, it'd have to be some sort of really random freak accident, but it's not impossible," he replied.

"Knowing me, that's not too unlikely," Phil yawned.

"Stay here, I'll be right back," Dan said, standing up suddenly.

"Where are you going, Dan?"

"I'll be back in a second. In the meantime, you might want to button your shirt," and he disappeared into his room.

Phil did as told and waited for Dan to return. He came back a few moments later, holding his little book about dreams,

"Apparently dreaming about your friend dying means that you're scared that you'll lose that friend," he said, plonking himself down next to Phil on the bed.

"Oh," Phil replied, simply.

"Do you think that that could be it?" Dan smiled.

Phil shrugged. He didn't know why he would suddenly be scared of losing Dan, but that seemed like the only explanation and it _did_ make sense…

"If that _is_ it…"Dan continued, "You know you don't have to worry: I'm not going _anywhere_ , you hear? I'm staying right here by your side. Not that we're apart much anyway… I want you to remember that I'm always right here. And if it makes you feel better, we can spend the whole of today together and I promise that I won't leave your side for more than five minutes. Do you think that would help, Phil?" He asked, a smile on his face.

Phil didn't reply.

"Phil?" Dan repeated, looking down to his friend.

But Phil never got to hear the end of Dan's soothing words because he had fallen sound asleep on his shoulder.

And, for the first time in weeks, no nightmares at all were to be had that night.


End file.
